


You Tried Your Best

by consultingcenturion



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Depression, Drug Use, Drugs, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Forgiveness, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Marriage, Slash, patient!John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-10
Updated: 2012-06-10
Packaged: 2017-11-07 11:09:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/430426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/consultingcenturion/pseuds/consultingcenturion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"John wasn't there. If he had seen Sherlock, if he had seen that raw need to forget, to distract himself, he would have—could have—stopped him." A case goes wrong and John is out of town, Sherlock turns to alternative means of forgetting. John puts him back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Tried Your Best

**Author's Note:**

> Story song: Fix You by Coldplay (covered by Tyler Ward and Boyce Avenue)
> 
> I don't own the world of Sherlock or the song Fix You. No copyright infringement intended!

He's in a haze. Falling, falling.

Down.

Down.

D

o

w

n.

It's invigorating, exciting, and completely reckless, Sherlock knows this. He stares down at his hands, covered in blood. For a split second he wonders if it's his, then he remembers through the fire burning through him that it's not.

His concentration is shot. The liquid lightning that is running through his veins sets everything ablaze.

Slamming, racing, pounding. He can feel everything so intensely. Each prickle of the air around him against his skin, it's delicious, marvelous.

Sherlock is cataloging the minutes since he shot that magnificent drug into his body, since he shoved the cool metal of the syringe into his arm and shot the warm gun of happiness. He is also vaguely aware that his stitches have popped open,  _again_. He's bleeding a little, but the redness that is leaking through his nicely pressed white shirt only distracts him. The color blooming across the fabric, swirling and blossoming a deep crimson.  _That won't do well to clean out_ , he thinks to himself. He moves his attention to his fingers. To the ring on his left hand.

 _John_.

Sherlock feels a bubble of emotion in his chest. His husband is gone away at a medical conference. They had gotten in a fight before he had left, and hadn't spoken in two days. Sometimes that happens, though. It's better for Sherlock to give John his space to calm down before he apologizes. However, this fight just happened to occur right before John leaving for this conference, four hours away by train, and he wouldn't be back for  _another_ two days, making it impossible for Sherlock and John to talk it out face-to-face, John's preferred way of working things out. Sherlock terribly missed his doctor, the fight had been silly, inconsequential, Sherlock being Sherlock and opening his mouth before thinking about what he was going to say. This fight also happened to coincide with another incident.

A case.

This case didn't seem too dreadfully boring, and Sherlock had been excited about something interesting to do while John was away to keep him entertained. There had been a series of kidnappings that eventually lead to murders that had occurred in a wealthy neighborhood. Three already dead when Sherlock was pulled to the case. Sherlock solved the case. He caught the murder. What he did not do, was save the lives of the children that the killer had abducted. He had raced to where he knew the perpetrator stowed his prisoners away, assessing that he was still within the time range that the children would still be alive, tackling the man as he had tried to flee into the woods, and once he was in the custody he had went in search of the two children that had recently gone missing. When he made his way down the stairs, he thought, for the first time, that he would be sick from the carnage. He almost didn't believe when he counted not two, not three, but  _five_ mutilated bodies of kidnaped children. He deduced that the two most recent abducted children had been killed but hours ago. The other three, days, probably. Sherlock didn't even know about them. He calmly turned on his heel and went back up the stairs, flatly telling one of the police that there were five dead bodies below, and he positively identified two of them.

He returned to Baker Street after that, stalked over to the bookshelf and pulled out something that he hadn't touched in at least two years, since John. He returned to the couch, sitting down, and stared hard at the little black case in his lap. Each time he closed his eyes, he could see the faces of those children. The ones that he couldn't save. He had been too late. Too slow. Too distracted. He felt thick and heavy and useless. His head was aching fiercely and he wanted to just delete the whole incident, but he couldn't, those images were burned into his memory. He couldn't toss it out, not without a little help.

John wasn't there. If he had seen Sherlock, if he had seen that raw need to forget, to distract himself, he would have, could have, stopped him. He would have wrapped his arms around his husband, like so many times before, and he would have squeezed tight. Then he would kiss him, grounding him to  _that_ moment. The here, the now. He would have tugged him to their room, massaged his limbs, kissed him sweetly. He would make love to him, quietly. He would stare into his eyes and make sure that the consulting detective damn well knew that everything was going to be okay. He would then make him some tea, wrap the blankets around the two of them, and run his fingers through his hair and work the younger man's scalp until he fell asleep.

_But John was not there._

In his desperation to make his mind hush, he prepared himself. He pressed the needle into his arm, and he let the world go.

At some point he realized he was crying. His face was wet, his eyes felt puffy, and his chest was aching. Sherlock has cried exactly six times in his entire life. Once in primary when he was beat up by a group of boys, who called him a queer and a freak. He cried the night before he had to leave John, when he was saying his silent goodbye; then he did again day he jumped from Bart's, the day he betrayed John. He cried when he returned, three years later, as he kissed John, and hugged him, and reminded himself that things were going to be okay. He also cried on their wedding day, that would be the only day that anyone ever sees the Great Sherlock Holmes shed a single tear, well, anyone other than John. This is the sixth time. He was curled up in a tight little ball, side bleeding a little, not enough for concern, with tears streaming down his face.

He did not notice the five calls he had received to his mobile, he did not care to check it.

He did not see that those calls were from one John H. Watson-Holmes.

He was confused when he felt hands on his face, when he heard, distantly, his name being called out. He was trying to go to sleep, trying to let the drug wash through him and burn him from the inside out. His eyes fluttered open and through the blur of colors and shapes that swirled around him, he saw his husband looming above him, a worried look on his face.

 _"Sherlock. What did you take?"_ He called out, Sherlock only heard his name fall out of John's mouth, he felt something crumble within him. He reached out like a child, wrapping his arms around John and pulling him flush against him. He tucked his face deep into his tanned neck and cried, hard. John, rubbed his back, having already been informed by Lestrade of the incident. He caught the first train back, and saw that he was already too late. Mycroft had been worried that this might ensue a relapse, and he had been right. He shushed Sherlock softly, " _I'm here now, love. It's okay I'm here."_ He moved his hand down Sherlock's side and felt a wetness. When he lifted his hand he saw that his fingers came away red. He realized a bit belatedly that Sherlock must have blown a stitch lose, probably on this last case. He bodily lifted the detective, wordlessly carrying him to their bedroom, and he silently laid him on the bed. He managed to disengage himself from Sherlock's spidery limbs and found his first aid kit.

Sherlock was crashing, hard. He couldn't focus on anything. The sharp clarity that came with each hit was ebbing way, making dark spots in his vision. There was a rushing sound in his ears. He was laying in his bed. John was back. But he wasn't in the room. No, he's back now. He's got something in his hands. He felt his shirt being unbuttoned, John's soft hands running down his chest, dabbing the blood away, cutting at the old stitches. He felt a small sting, a tugging, and it repeated. John was restitching him. His face still felt wet. He couldn't feel his legs. He felt sick. He wanted to go to sleep.

John wordlessly stitched up his husband's side. Cleaned the blood up, and removed the soiled shirt. He bandaged the wound back up and pulled Sherlock's shoes off of him. He frowned at the sight of Sherlock. He was sweating, his face grayed over, he was shaking a little. The doctor had noticed the syringe in the sitting room; he knew what Sherlock had done to himself. Surprisingly, he wasn't angry, he wasn't disappointed in Sherlock. He wouldn't lecture him, he wouldn't scold him. He would take care of his husband, because that's what good doctors do for the one that they love. Sherlock was mumbling unintelligibly, vibrating violently. He still hadn't stopped crying, though he doubted that the detective was aware of it. John leaned forward and pushed the sweat-dampened curls out of his eyes and kissed his hot forehead.

At the feeling of lips to his forehead, Sherlock opened his eyes and tried to focus on John's face through the drug-induced cloud. He was fading quickly, he knew he'd be unconscious soon, but he had to tell John something. Now. His mouth wouldn't cooperate with him, all he could think about was how heavy his limbs felt, like he was full of sand, and how tired he felt. His body was demanding sleep. He tried to whisper that he was sorry. That it was all his fault. John just hushed him and as Sherlock closed his eyes and let the blackness have him, he heard John whisper into his ear,  _"I love you, Sherlock."_

Once Sherlock was out, John dutifully removed the detectives trousers and replaced them with a pair of pajama pants before shifting him under the covers. For a few moments, he stroked Sherlock's damp hair, massaged his fingers and forearms, taking care to avoid the injection site, and then placed another kiss on each of those sharp cheekbones. Sherlock's fever dreams were fitful, he rolled and tossed and kicked until John pulled him into his arms and the detective stilled at his touch. His husband being safely sound asleep, John let himself sag against the headboard. It broke his heart to see Sherlock so shattered, so deeply wounded that he had to sink to this alternative to make it stop. Seeing Sherlock cry, well that nearly broke John in two. The panic that he felt, when Lestrade had called him, when Mycroft had texted him, it made John cringe. He knew what he would do in the morning. He would soothe Sherlock's hangover, take care of him in every way he could. He'd feed him his favorite foods, comfort him, tell him all of the things he needed to hear. Most of all he would remind Sherlock that he loves him, that things were going to be okay, and that he wouldn't ever leave again.

John eventually got up, Sherlock sleeping fine without him there, and ventured downstairs. He found Sherlock's kit, picked it up and glared at it hard. He determinedly walked to the bathroom, flushed the remaining drugs down the toilet and threw the rest of it in the rubbish bin, taking care to throw some of the old food from the refrigerator in on top of it. He busied himself to distract his mind from revisiting the past few days, to push the fidgets out of his limbs, the dread that was coiling in his stomach. He had to push these emotions aside and be the good doctor that he had always been. He'd researched detox methods, how to cope with the hangover Sherlock was sure to have, what to settle a drug-riddled system. John was prepared for this, he would fix Sherlock back up, and he would take care of him, and he would love him for the rest of his days. Because not only was John a good doctor, he was a good man.

The next morning, and the days that followed, John did exactly that. He took care of Sherlock, kept quiet for that mind that he knew needed to process, to find peace, or to delete as seen fit. Sherlock never strayed further than a few feet from John, a wrapped around his thin shoulders and the occasional tea mug clasped in his spidery fingers. He said nothing, merely following when John moved with a vacant, unchanging expression across his face. His fingers always managed to find part of John, checking that he's still there. Undoubtedly, Sherlock was assessing his mind palace, rearranging what was necessary, mulling over what had happened, doing whatever he needed to bring himself back to where he needed to be. While his mind was not present, his body, his transport, needed to know that he was not alone. He was there, leaning against the counter with his fingers caught in the hem on John's shirt as the doctor did the washing up; his hand brushed against John's elbow as he typed out a blog post, or watched evening telly. He sat against the tub while John showered, and he would spread his hands across John's shoulder blades and lean against him, with his cheek pressed to the doctor's back while John brushed his teeth. At night, Sherlock would curl up to John, fit himself into all the crevices and curves, piecing himself like a puzzle to the smaller man. He'd fall asleep after an hour, and John would hear him whimper in his sleep. The detective's brow would break its stoic state, furrow deep lines across his pale forehead, dark brows knitting together; he'd grit his teeth, and twitch, John would rub circles in his back, murmur in Sherlock's ears that he was there and that it was okay, and eventually, just before four or five am, he would finally settle down and fall into a semi-deep sleep.

As the days passed John never complained, never rushed him, never became short or angry with Sherlock. He made no comment, offered no cliche words of advice. He made tea, tidied up, watched telly, read books and journals; he massaged Sherlock's scalp, he drew baths and washed him with comforting aromatic soaps, he even went as far as to secure a few cadavers from the morgue for when Sherlock felt "up to it." John did  _not_ try to shake Sherlock out of this catatonia, he did  _not_ ask Sherlock to wait outside the loo, to give him space, to just  _get over it._ He didn't do these things because John knows what Sherlock needs. He knows that he needed this time, that he needed John, and that Sherlock didn't have to say a thing for his good doctor to know exactly how to help Sherlock settle his mind and fix his heart.

After one week, Sherlock broke his silence. He was sitting next to John at the kitchen table, one hand on John's thigh, when he blinked several times, as if waking up from a long trance, and he peered down at the toast sitting previously unnoticed in front of him and he glanced to John, who was reading from a medical journal that was resting on the table, left hand forking eggs into his mouth, right hand resting on top of the hand that was on his thigh.

Then he spoke, "Pass the jam, John?"

John glanced over in surprise, eyes widening briefly before recovering into a small smile. "Of course, Sherlock." He reached across the table and slid the jam to Sherlock who dropped a dollop onto his toast. He squeezed John's thigh, it said  _Thank you for this, for everything._ John squeezed back.

_Always._


End file.
